{"id":105619,"date":"2018-08-07T08:14:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T13:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=105619"},"modified":"2018-08-08T07:44:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T12:44:39","slug":"appellate-court-affirms-meth-lab-defendants-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/08\/07\/appellate-court-affirms-meth-lab-defendants-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Meth lab defendant’s conviction upheld"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

LIMA \u2013 A 2017 criminal conviction handed down in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court in connection with meth labs in the Ohio City area was recently affirmed on appeal by the Ohio Third District Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n

\"\"The appeal was filed by Dan J. Swoveland, who sought to overturn his conviction on drug-related charges handed down December 4, 2017, in the local Common Pleas Court.<\/p>\n

Swoveland was originally indicted May 4, 2017, on five counts: two counts of illegal manufacture of drugs, both first-degree felonies; one count of illegal assembly or possession of chemical for the manufacture of drugs, a second degree felony; one count of aggravated funding of drug trafficking, a first-degree felony; and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.<\/p>\n

On October 11, 2017, Swoveland withdrew his not guilty plea and entered guilty pleas to Counts 1 and 3. In exchange for his guilty plea, the other three counts were dismissed and the prosecution agreed to recommend that Swoveland serve a seven-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n

The judge in the case accepted Swoveland\u2019s guilty plea and ordered a presentence investigation. At Swoveland\u2019s sentencing, the judge sentenced him to seven years on count 1 and five years on count 2, but also ordered that Swoveland serve the two terms consecutively, for a total of 12 years in prison.<\/p>\n

Swoveland assigns three judicial errors in seeking to overturn his conviction.<\/p>\n

Error 1 states that his guilty pleas were involuntary and should be vacated due to statements he made in court during sentencing.<\/p>\n

The defendant charges through his attorney, Thomas J. Lucente Jr., that his guilty pleas were not \u201cknowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily\u201d made because in-court statements he made at sentencing do not reflect that he was knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily admitting guilt to both counts of the indictment.<\/p>\n

In his appellate opinion affirming the conviction, Judge Vernon Preston noted that a trial court must first determine that a defendant makes a plea voluntarily, that a defendant understands the nature of the charges against him, make sure that a defendant understands the effect of a guilty or no contest plea, and let the defendant know that he is waiving his rights to a jury trial and its related benefits.<\/p>\n

The appeal points to Swoveland\u2019s statement that he \u201cthought he could get community control\u201d after pleading guilty to one first- and one second-degree felony charge, both of which carry mandatory prison time.<\/p>\n

Judge Preston noted that the trial judge did inform Swoveland that he was \u201csubject to mandatory terms of imprisonment based on the offenses to which he was pleading guilty\u201d.<\/p>\n

Based on the court record, Swoveland then \u201cunequivocally stated\u201d that he understood that he was subject to mandatory prison terms for those offenses to which he was pleading guilty.<\/p>\n

Judge Preston noted that, following Swoveland\u2019s community service statement, the trial judge stopped the sentencing hearing to allow the defendant to consult with his attorney. Following the consultation, the trial judge again asked Swoveland if he understood there was a mandatory minimum prison sentence on both counts, and the defendant said that he did.<\/p>\n

A second part to Error 1 notes that Swoveland stated \u201che was not actually guilty\u201d during his sentencing, and that the trial judge should not have accepted his guilty plea based on that statement.<\/p>\n

Judge Preston stated that, when such statements are made during a sentencing hearing and not denied later, a trial judge must determine that a defendant has \u201cmade a rational calculation to plead guilty notwithstanding his protestations of innocence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Preston noted that, in Swoveland\u2019s case, he did deny the statement that he was not guilty later in the sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n

In overruling the first motion, the appellate judge said the record showed Swoveland made his guilty pleas knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily.<\/p>\n

Swoveland\u2019s second assignment of error asserted that his guilty pleas were involuntary and should be vacated because Swoveland was incompetent to stand trial and a competency hearing was not ordered in the case.<\/p>\n

In overruling the second error, Judge Preston said there was insufficient evidence of incompetency and no evident of Swoveland acting irrationally in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout definitive evidence that the trial court actually possessed concerns about Swoveland\u2019s competency, we defer to the trial court\u2019s determination, as we are required to do, since it was able to see and hear what transpired in the courtroom,\u201d Judge Preston wrote in his decision.<\/p>\n

The third assignment of error stated that Swoveland was denied the effective assistance of counsel as required by the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

Swoveland said that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request a competency hearing.<\/p>\n

Judge Preston\u2019s opinion rejected Swoveland\u2019s contention that he did not have effective counsel, since the defendant could not show that his counsel\u2019s performance was deficient or unreasonable under the circumstances, or that there was evidence that the trial court should have ordered a competency hearing in the case.<\/p>\n

The other two judges hearing the case, John Willamowski and Stephen Shaw, also agreed with Preston\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Rauch represented the state in the appeals process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor LIMA \u2013 A 2017 criminal conviction handed down in Van Wert County Common Pleas Court in connection with meth labs in the Ohio City area was recently affirmed on appeal by the Ohio Third District Court of Appeals. The appeal was filed by Dan J. Swoveland, who sought to overturn his conviction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 16:36:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}